QUOTE: Nearly eight years after NATO warplanes intervened in a bitter ethnic conflict between Serbs and rebellious Kosovo Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, the United States and its European allies have agreed to support Kosovo's permanent secession from Serbia under continuing international supervision, according to senior U.S. and European officials. The decision is likely to lead, possibly as early as this summer, to the formal creation of a new Connecticut-size country in southeastern Europe with membership in the United Nations and, eventually, its own army

QUOTE: Russia on Monday shut off crude oil supplies that flow by pipeline across Belarus to Germany, Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, charging that Belarus was illegally siphoning off oil meant for the other countries. The dispute between two erstwhile allies will have little immediate effect because the end-customer countries have strategic reserves for at least two months. But it is rekindling discussion in Europe about the reliability of Russia as a supplier of energy.

QUOTE: [British, Russian, and Interpol detectives are--Ed.] all pursuing clues - and, perhaps, very different agendas - in last month's fatal poisoning of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. But as the international probe expands, the players - and clues - are often at odds, complicating a case that demands considerable cross- border cooperation.

QUOTE: The trail of radiation found in London expanded to 12 sites Thursday, and British authorities turned their attention to two Russian aircraft in their efforts to track the poison that killed a former Russian intelligence officer...

QUOTE: ussia has deported an Uzbek man to his home country despite a last-minute order by the European Court of Human Rights that the deportation be stayed pending a review...."Our greatest concern is for Muminov's protection from torture or other ill treatment,"...

QUOTE: Russia on Thursday suspended the activities of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Republican Institute and more than 90 other foreign nongovernmental organizations, saying they failed to meet the registration requirements of a controversial new law designed to bring activists here under much closer government scrutiny.

QUOTE: Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist whose byline defined the fading craft of investigative and crusading reporting in President Vladimir Putin's Russia, was fatally gunned down...renowned for her probes of the brutality of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya as well as the banality of corruption permeating Russian life, from the remote provinces to the bright lights of Moscow.

QUOTE: Soviet-style forced psychiatry has reemerged in Russia as a weapon to intimidate or discredit citizens who tangle with the authorities, according to human rights activists and some mental health professionals. Despite major reforms in the early 1990s, some officials are again employing this form of repression.

QUOTE: Chechen security forces brutish acts, such as the torture of a woman accused of adultery, have gone unpunished...Mr. Kadyrov said that his units were being professionalized and that the armed men under his command integrated into formal government structures.

QUOTE: A Russian scientist was given a six-year suspended sentence Tuesday for the export to South Korea of technology that prosecutors contended could be used to manufacture missiles...Scientists and human rights activists argue that the evidence in these cases...is weak or nonexistent.

QUOTE: As a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology and to enrich uranium. But it became enmeshed in controversy in 2002 when Iranian dissidents disclosed that the country had concealed its nuclear programs for almost two decades. Iran suspended the most controversial parts of its activities, and European diplomats agreed not to pursue Security Council action while they conducted intensive negotiations to ensure that Iran's program was and would remain peaceful.

QUOTE: [International Atomic Energy Agency--Ed.] board members will consider a new assessment from the IAEA's investigation of Iran. The two-page report depicts a country that remains under suspicion and continues to conceal information from inspectors, and it says Iran is preparing to begin pilot-scale enrichment.

QUOTE: A horrific case of hazing at a Russian military academy has catapulted the issue of the brutal treatment of conscripts back into the public eye and led to demands that the Defense Ministry finally deal with a problem it has been accused of ignoring for years.

QUOTE: The United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia agreed Monday that financial assistance to the new Palestinian government, which will be led by the radical Islamic group Hamas, would be contingent on the government's recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence.

QUOTE: The controversy opens a window on an enduring feature of life across Russia: the high-stakes battles between clans of politicians and business leaders. Elections, the courts, the bureaucracy and the news media all become weapons in these bitter contests.

QUOTE: France, Britain and Germany have negotiated with Iran over the last three years, seeking a deal by which it would permanently shut down parts of its nuclear program in return for diplomatic and trade incentives. Iran has tentatively shuttered certain nuclear operations, such as the enrichment facility, but has also repeatedly broken or altered various interim agreements.

QUOTE: ...the business rationale Gazprom cited for its decision was a thin disguise for political action, punishing a new Ukrainian government for its policy of pursuing membership in the E.U. and NATO. Russia's membership in the G-8 has been controversial since its entry in the late 1990s. Recently, the issue has come back to the fore with the government's legal assault on the oil giant Yukos and a new measure that would bring grass-roots activism under greater government control.

QUOTE: Russia retreated abruptly Monday from its confrontation with Ukraine over natural gas prices, after an uproar in West European capitals over dead-of-winter cuts in gas supplies threatened to undermine Russia's ambition to expand its highly profitable role as a strategic energy partner of the European Union.

QUOTE: The state-controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom cut off the supply of natural gas to Ukraine...the standoff has a fraught political backdrop and could also have potentially far-reaching implications for Europe, which is increasingly dependent on Russia for natural gas.

QUOTE: Last July, RTL Group, the broadcasting arm of the Bertelsmann Group, agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in REN-TV from Irena Lesnevskaya, who founded and ran the channel with her son, Dmitry Lesnevsky. Some journalists are criticizing RTL for not intervening in what they say are moves to restrict the station's coverage

QUOTE: The Russian parliament on Wednesday passed a revised version of a controversial bill governing grass-roots activity in the country. Nongovernmental organizations welcomed a few of the amendments but reiterated their concern that the measure will authorize strict government supervision and allow the shutting down of some groups.

QUOTE: Voters go to the polls in Chechnya on Sunday to choose a new local parliament, an election that the Kremlin hopes will further a policy of "normalization" in the conflict-torn republic. But many Chechens and analysts predict little effect on the violence and corruption that has exhausted and alienated a population desperate for peace.

QUOTE: ...force local organizations, from medical charities to human rights groups, to re-register with a state body that would examine their activities and decide if they could continue their operations. The law would also restrict the ability of Russian nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, to accept foreign grants or employ foreigners.

QUOTE: Thousands of Muslims from a small ethnic group known as the Meskhetian Turks are fleeing this Black Sea region for the United States. The exodus is caused by what human rights groups call a campaign of persecution sanctioned by local authorities and spearheaded by the Cossacks, a Russian militia that fought for the czars and is being revived.

QUOTE: Khartoum has not abided by a long-standing Security Council order to establish a "plan to disarm" the Sudanese-backed Arab militiamen, who stand accused of driving more than 2 million tribal Africans from their homes since 2003.

QUOTE: Switzerland has agreed to extradite Russia's former atomic energy minister to the United States, where he faces charges that he embezzled at least $9 million....The case has rankled Russian officials...

QUOTE: ...a Russian method of treating alcoholism that essentially involves scaring the living daylights out of the alcoholic... it involves the manipulation of the alcoholic's psyche to create the belief that alcohol equals death.

ABSTRACT: The families of Russian children in Beslan killed in attacks by Chechen separatists want answers about how the attack came to be; they want the surviving perpetrator given immunity so he will be motivated to provide those answers. They believe that Russian officials, from bribed local police who let the militants pass checkpoints all the way up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, share responsibility for the tragedy.

QUOTE: Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison on fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion charges following a 10-month trial shadowed by claims that the Kremlin orchestrated the case to crush a potentially dangerous political opponent.

QUOTE: Along with the myth of FDR's treachery in leading America into war, the "stab in the back" interpretation of Yalta became a cudgel with which the old right and their McCarthyite heirs tried to discredit a president they had long despised.

QUOTE: While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons...abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states.

QUOTE: The Feb. 13, 1945 bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force has become a symbol for excessive, gratuitous violence on the part of the Allies during World War II. But with the 60th anniversary of the bombing on Sunday, a new book by British historian Frederick Taylor argues that this view may not be quite accurate.

QUOTE: The United States and the seven other countries with Arctic territory jointly expressed concern yesterday about profound changes in the Arctic climate and said they would consider new scientific findings concluding that heat-trapping emissions were the main cause.

QUOTE: As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help.

QUOTE: A survey of government accountability and openness in 25 countries around the globe has found that each one is challenged by corruption and lacks sufficient protections against electoral abuses, including developed democracies such as the United States, Germany and Japan.

QUOTE: Scientists say the Arctic, once considered pristine and unspoiled, has become a sinkhole for pollutants. The contaminants -- including heavy metals, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, DDT and other pesticides -- come north by air and water.

QUOTE: At least $5 billion in kickbacks went from corrupt contractors  mainly French and Russian  into the pockets of Saddam and his thugs. Some went to pay off his protectors in foreign governments and media, and we may soon see how much stuck to the fingers of U.N. bureaucrats as well.

QUOTE: ...it will be one of the largest mass migrations of Russians since the Soviet Union began forcibly populating the region at the height of Stalin's terror in the 1930's. But the experience so far shows the difficulty of undoing by persuasion what was accomplished by decree.

QUOTE: Newspapers have not been targeted for government-orchestrated takeovers the way television has... But some Russian journalists say the Kremlin nonetheless manages to intimidate many newspapers into muting their criticism and investigative journalism.

QUOTE: A Russian court has suspended the espionage trial of arms control scholar Igor Sutyagin indefinitely, leaving him in limbo again after four years in prison and outraging human rights groups that consider it another violation of judicial due process.